When I was just 3 years old, evil first invaded my life. By the age of 5, I was thrown into a world of brutal strangers, forgotten by everyone. My story is one of abuse and terror. But it doesn’t end there. Ultimately, mine is a story of hope, endurance, and the healing power of Christian community.

Category: Forgiving

“When she saw the bracelet she cried out, ‘Now I know you’ve really forgiven me,'” I said shaking my head. “She flew at me, knocked over napkins, banged into chairs to hug me.” My head continued to shake from side-to-side, “The bracelet doesn’t mean what she thinks.”

“I still don’t know why you gave it to her,” Jenna replied.

“It was her birthday,” I shrugged. “She wanted real jewelry. It was on clearance, less than I’d budgeted, I knew she’d love it, so I got it for her.”

“But why would you give Caroline such a great present after she abandoned you?” Jenna demanded. “I just don’t get it.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” I shrugged. “The bracelet was so wonderful and I was so happy that’s she’d love it,”

“She didn’t deserve it,” Jenna pouted.

“Maybe not. But can you imagine looking for a gift based on what someone deserves?” I shuddered.

“Yes,” Jenna said.

“What a lot of wasted energy,” I said. “I’d rather not give any gift.”

“Why go to her party?”

“Her sister invited me; the girls wanted me there,” I raised one shoulder in a shrug. “I thought it would be okay since there were other people.” I shook my head again, “I just wish she understood.”

“That you don’t trust her?”

“Yeah. NO. I do trust her.She’ll do the same thing again.”

“Of course she will,” Jenna said.

“She hasn’t changed. It’s all about her. She feels safe around me now she knows I don’t have cancer. She doesn’t even imagine how I feel.”

“So you shouldn’t have given her the bracelet.”

“I couldn’t go without giving her a gift. Why would I give her something she didn’t want? That would be no gift at all.”

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“He used to say, ‘I’m doing the best I can,'” I said staring at the icon of Our Lady of Sorrows above Dr. Vogwall’s head.

“Was he?”

“I never thought so before,” I sighed looking down. “But now…” My eyes returned to the icon.

“Yes?”

“His best was deficient, but it would still be his best.” I longed to press my face into the folds of Mary’s blue mantle.

“It would,” Dr. Vogwall said.

Mary’s eyes encouraged me to say more.

“If it was his best,” a tear threatened to spill onto my face. I sniffed it away. “If he did his best,” I sniffed again, “no matter how deficient, it’s worth something. Don’t you think?”

“What do you think?”

I took in a deep breath, “I think it must have some value.”

“What does that look like?”

“I don’t know.” I scratched my head and glanced up again at Mary, “Must I be able to quantify it in some way? Isn’t it enough to know there was value even if I can’t delineate it?”

“We’ve talked about the problems with abstractions,” he sighed.

“Yes. I need to be able to see reality.” A tear ran down my cheek, splashed onto my charcoal grey skirt leaving a tiny damp spot that slowly disappeared in the knitted wool. “He saved my life.”

“Tell me about that.”

“He interfered. When I kept trying to kill myself, he distracted me.”

“Brutally,” Dr. Vogwall said.

I nodded my head, “I was taking more and more pills. Eventually, I’d have succeeded,” I sighed. “I was so busy fighting him, I forgot about killing myself.”

“You weren’t willing to let him do the job?”

“Precisely!” I sat up straight in the chair. “I could kill myself but I’d be damned if I let him destroy me.” My eyes sought the tears on Mary’s face, “He engaged my stubbornness subroutine,” I said in a small voice. “That’s worth something.” More tears tracked down my cheek. I lowered my eyes to Dr. Vogwall’s, “Fighting him, I learned to fight myself. That’s worth a lot.”

“You think that came as a result of him doing his best?”

“I think his best was absolutely crazy and exactly what I needed.”

“But he didn’t know,” Dr. Vogwall replied.

“So?” I asked. “I get credit for so many things I do thoughtlessly or instinctively. Everyone does. Shouldn’t he?”

“Should he?”

“Yes,” my head nodded in agreement. “If I get credit, he should too.”

“So the cruelty doesn’t matter?”

“Of course it matters. It was horrible. But things can be horrible and necessary at the same time.

“Dr. Vogwall, I would be dead if not for him. He saved my life and,” my face crumpled, tears flowed, “I’m grateful to him for that.” My hand flew up, covered my mouth but the words had already escaped. “I never thought I’d say that.”

“Do you think he wanted to save your life?”

“No, he wanted to control me, to own me. But it’s like Joseph’s brothers — the minister meant it for evil but God meant it for good — my good.” I sniffed and wiped away tears. “I wish he had taken it for his good too.”

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Assignment: In words and/or images, compose a piece grounded in the possibility, distant as it may be, of hope and reconciliation.

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“You have to forgive and forget,” Claire ejaculated. Her straight, dark hair shimmered as she punctuated her words with vigorous bobs of her head. “Besides, I’ve been really nice to you all summer. You know you can tell me.”

“What?” It was a surprised squeak. “Every time I drop my guard, you betray and attack me.”

“Me?” her voice screeched. “Attack? Betray? When?”

“All the time,” I told her. “The night you pulled a lock of my hair out and pretended you were asleep. The Christmases and birthdays when you so very, kindly tell your father that you have a beautiful dress for me and give me one of your dirty, cast-off rags. The time you threw a glass at me, broke the window, and blamed me for it because I ducked. The times you promised to keep a secret and then went and told your father. You attack and betray me all the time.”

“You’re just touchy,” she pouted at me. “You take things so personally.”

“Look at my leg!” I showed her the dime-sized wound on the back of my right calf. “Two days ago you pinched a chunk out of me right there,” I jabbed at the spot. “And when I threatened to tell, you said, ‘You don’t count. You’re adopted anyway.'”

“You are,” Claire solemnly replied as if that was sufficient excuse.

“That doesn’t give you the right to hurt me,” my voice was fierce; my small fists clenched in tight balls.

“Daddy should never have brought you here,” Claire insisted.

“But you’d never tell him that, would you?” She took a step back. My eyes narrowed until my near-sighted, impression of Claire sharpened. “So what…? You take it out on me instead?”

I shook my head. “I may forgive you.” The volume of my voice raised so that its sound reverberated around the glass walls of the breakfast nook, “I pray to God to forgive you.”

Lord? Do I really want to forgive her?

“But I’ll never again be stupid enough to forget.”

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On Friday (and occasionally Saturday if Friday is filled with an excess of other activities),100s of bloggers set a timer, write for 5 minutes, and then post the results over at Kate Motaung’s blog, Heading Home. She provides the prompt on Thursday evening. We don’t edit or concern ourselves with whether our writing is flawless or worthy to be seen. We expose our incomplete, unpolished thoughts and words to each other and our readers and tweet them with the hashtag #FMFParty. Join us.

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It only takes one time. Just one time. And then it’s awakened. Rage. A bigger rage than any child can fathom. The desire to destroy, the desire to rend, the desire to annihilate… One molestation, one rape, one instance of sexually abusing a child unleashes forces no child ought ever experience.

Rage is for hell. Rage is for the self absorbed. God did not make a child’s heart for rage.

Sometimes friends post images of molesters being punished in horrible ways. Sometimes they make excruciating statements about what ought to happen to child rapists. Those hurt the victims. Such images and comments beckon the rage that we work so hard to keep under control. They take us back to the desire we must fight, that we must allow God to fight within us.

We were never created to do horrible things to others, even when we’ve been shattered by their actions. We don’t need more insanity. We need to know that we haven’t been made crazy by what has been done to us. The only hope is forgiveness and that takes prayer and work and time and an enormous amount of grace. We need to mark the debt paid because those who have hurt us can never undo or repay. We need to let the sins committed against us be washed away by the Blood of the Lamb.

Lock up abusers. Stop them. But don’t delight in harming them. Don’t be like them. And please, don’t tempt those of us who have been weakened to nail those who have abused us to the crosses their sins have placed upon our shoulders.

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On Friday (and occasionally Saturday if Friday is filled with an excess of other activities),100s of bloggers set a timer, write for 5 minutes, and then post the results over at Kate Motaung’s blog, Heading Home. She provides the prompt on Thursday evening. We don’t edit or concern ourselves with whether our writing is flawless or worthy to be seen. We expose our incomplete, unpolished thoughts and words to each other and our readers and tweet them with the hashtag #FMFParty. Join us.

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rage.jpg

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I’ve been asked how, after all I’ve suffered, I not only believe in God but love Him more because I’ve suffered. My response to therapists was always, ‘God didn’t hurt me. People did.’ Certainly, there have been occasions when, like Job, I’ve demanded answers. God always answers. And not with dismissive self-righteousness, but by making me more and more human, by showing me that those who hurt me are also human though I’d like an us/them dichotomy.

Would that I could say my us/them perspective no longer exists. Would that I could more clearly see me in them. Them mostly consists of those who hurt me when I was a child. And though I pray for them and hope those who are dead sought and accepted forgiveness before they died, I’m so grateful they are no longer in my life: I’ve escaped the lions’ den and have no desire to go near it again.

Except there’s my writing assignment this week. I’m asked to write from each character’s perspective. And what I need to write is a conflict with the minister from my perspective and from his. Many writers struggle to give their characters flaws. I’m struggling to give the minister humanity. Somehow, I must step into his shoes and see how it’s human to try to thwart and control others. It’s a daunting proposition.

Still, in the midst of this monumental exercise I see an opportunity to forgive a bit more. If the minister was a severely broken human, he was like me and I am like him. If he was a monster then I have the ability to be a monster too. So for the moment, I must put aside my high-pitched objections that insist, ‘I’m not like that!’ For the moment, I must acknowledge that, at the very least, I could be like that. For the moment, I must imagine how I might be if I pushed away the grace of God. Without His grace, I’d be an angry, vengeful, spite-filled, controlling child who demands that life go my way. No matter how uncomfortably, those shoes fit my feet. God saves me from being that person many times each day.

Please pray for me as I complete this assignment. I’ll post the results here.

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Your Input Matters So Much

"Your book project stunned and really spoke to me. And the reason is -- as you point out...'If I don’t tell the brutal story, the miracles of healing will not be miracles at all.' I desperately needed to know -- by witness, not just in theory -- that God does work the kinds of miracles you describe. One of the reasons why your story has spoken to me (and I'm sure to people struggling with God's love like I am) is that I would not believe such stories possible without your incredible witness. That is, I would not have believed that it's possible to go through what you have gone through and still be sure of God's love for you and in fact, as you seem to have, be even more certain than someone who has not had such experiences. So one of the reasons your work has spoken to me is your honesty in detailing some of what you have been through. (That cannot have been easy...)" K. Dormandy